<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>this is enough by BlackJacketsandPens</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23485843">this is enough</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackJacketsandPens/pseuds/BlackJacketsandPens'>BlackJacketsandPens</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Final Fantasy XIV</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, LISTEN I KNOW IT'S SUPER NOT CANON BUT LET ME HAVE THIS, lots of fluff and soft things, please let me be able to remove the au tag one day SE, sequel to my first emetwol fic, spoilers for the end of 5.0 and some for 5.2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 08:41:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>20,701</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23485843</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackJacketsandPens/pseuds/BlackJacketsandPens</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>my heart is yours, love, yours alone, love / and should the storms rise, there I'll be / I'll fight for you, love, to not go under</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Sequel to 'never enough'. More Emet/WoL drabbles, starting with a miracle and moving onward from there. Spoilers for the end of 5.0 and some for 5.2.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Warrior of Light</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. this is enough</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For a long time, all he can remember is the end. Not even the end--- though it feels like it must be. One moment in time, he remembers it as if it is the only thing there is. And perhaps it<em> is</em> the only thing.</p><p>He remembers anger, grief, desperation and rage. Pain and offense and fury. He remembers combat, aether burning with magic as no mortal could ever conceive of. He remembers something in him snapping, desperation rising to choke him; he cannot lose, he recalls thinking, and he recalls reaching out with his soul, his aether, his being, calling out to his god, calling to the darkness and to His grace, and throwing his essence into what was offered, wrapping it around him in a shroud, sword and shield both.</p><p>And then--- and then he can recall no more. </p><p>Only darkness. Only hunger.</p><p>He had thrown himself into that darkness, into His darkness, and it had devoured him whole. Swallowed him up. All he can recall is that darkness, as if it were the only thing that existed. Darkness and hunger, yawning and empty, endless and eternal. Pulling him down, drowning him ever surer than even his own grief and despair. He doesn’t know how long he spends, spent, in that empty darkness, ravenous and terrifying, demanding everything he is and has been--- he cannot know, perhaps; time is meaningless. Even time is devoured by this darkness, even thought and memory, and so it is all he knows. All he is. </p><p>Perhaps then there is light, so much light that it burns away the darkness, burns away all he is even as the darkness devoured it--- but it is there and then gone, and it is hard to recall if anything happened after that. There is a brief moment of feeling weightless, like chains he had never known were there, chains he had forgotten were chains, are gone--- and then nothing at all once again.</p><p>And all he recalls is the darkness, as if it still devours him, as if it wishes still to take all he is, reclaim him, devour even that light, devour even that moment of freedom. How had it found him here, he does not know, but it drags him deep down, down, down, seeps into his aether and his core, eats away at him, devours everything, drowns him. </p><p>But then...but then, there is a light. A small light, a faint and flickering candle in the distance. He does not know it, cannot see its source, but it is warm-- he can feel that from here, its warmth, and how it calls to him. It calls to him, it does, a soft faint melody that sings to him, shaky and unfinished but determined to reach him where he is, drowning in this darkness, slowly being devoured...and he reaches back.</p><p>He reaches to it with the fragments that is all that remains of him, a shattered soul drowning, because it is warm, and though it flickers and stutters, a small single star in an expanse of naught but black rather than any overwhelming sun, it is bright, and it calls to him like a lighthouse in the fog, and so he reaches. And so he reaches, and strains, and follows that light even as it remains small and distant -- <em>was it always so small? somehow he thinks that’s significant, but he cannot remember</em> -- as it continues to guide him, steady and flickering and present, just ahead and calling, soft and sweet and faint, but there, still there.</p><p>He doesn’t know what changes, but suddenly he feels as if his head as broken the surface of a vast and deep abyss, and he gasps for air--- only it isn’t air, it is aether, and he floats there, peeling eyes (that are not eyes, his only form here is one he imagines, he is a soul and naught else) open to peer around him. </p><p>He recognizes where he is, then, memory trickling back to him--- it is not as he remembers, it will never again be as he remembers, but he floats now within the aetherial sea, within the Underworld that he so loved. No...no longer is it the Underworld. It is not the ocean that he once could traverse and touch with ease, endless and beautiful all around him, the cycle that he was so attuned to, the master of. It is simply a stream, the flow small and fast enough that he had thought he might be swept away should he choose to step into it--- but he is not, now that he is here. No, he simply floats, the darkness below him and the stream above and around, drifting aimlessly, not pulled apart and scattered, not becoming one with the multitude as most souls do, but simply...remaining himself, aware, awake as his soul slowly resolves itself once more, that distant light still calling, pulling him free from that dark abyss beneath him.</p><p>He feels a tug, as if the darkness beneath wishes to reclaim him even as he fights free, but he pulls himself away, pulls himself fully into the stream--- it hurts, like tearing adhesive from skin, like tearing himself out of something that does not wish to let go, but he comes away from it with a gasp and a soundless cry, soul tumbling clumsily into the flow of the stream; were it true water, he thinks vaguely, he would have landed rather embarrassingly. But it is not, and so he drifts again, easier for his freedom, and though that light still calls...he is so tired. His rage, his pain, his despair, that darkness had devoured it all, and left him empty, hollow--- the edges of it remain, aching and tender like scars and old wounds, but it does not consume him...and without that, what is he left with? What remains? He is scraped clean, clean of everything. What little is returning, memory and thought, it...does not fill him. He is too large, too vast, and there had been so much that is gone now…</p><p>For a moment, he lies back, letting himself be pulled aimlessly along, and considers giving up entirely. There is nothing left of him, after all. Scars and wounds and grief that lingers, perhaps, things etched into his essence after all these eons, but the bulk of it has been drained away, the rage and despair, the fury and pain. The darkness has drained away too, and his vastness of aether fights to regain its equilibrium, struggles back to that balance in all souls, the balance that existed before light and dark were ever two separate concepts. (He does not think it will manage that much; he will always be tainted now, scarred and uneven, and it is the least of what he has earned.) But...what has he left to exist for? He recalls a promise asked for and accepted, a plea to remember--- and so if they do, they have no need of him. He is a relic of a world that only exists now in memory, a reminder only of the darkness he has been drowned in. Of those that remained whole...one is gone, devoured in his own right, and one has not truly <em>existed</em> as the man he had known in all these eons, so does he even count? He would be alone. So...so perhaps it is best if he simply...fades. If he becomes naught but a memory.</p><p>But as he tilts his head, lifting a nonexistent hand to trail itself through the stream --- it is not his ocean, his Underworld, fathomless and beautiful, its vast, sunlike souls drifting slow and gentle; and yet he watches the little souls flow, fast and free, glimmering like strings of pearls, like countless stars, as if he drifts among the night sky, and he realizes for the first time in eons that it...that it still holds beauty --- he sees that light, that distant light, and hears it still calling. </p><p>And...and he thinks he recognizes it now. Perhaps it is familiar, perhaps it is not, but he knows it, and he realizes that...no. He’s wrong. There is one person, one soul in all the shards, that wants him to return. They are calling him, steady and firm, that distant light--- if he returned, he would not be alone. If he faded, then they...then they would mourn. Or were they already mourning? He reaches again for that light, and it remains. It remains, calling, guiding him towards it, towards what he has realized is the call of a soul, one small soul whose melody is as unfinished and incomplete as all these small souls, but it struggles and tries all the same. It sings as determinedly as ever, as if it does not know it is broken, as if it does not care that it is. </p><p>One small soul, one soul that calls to him...is it-- is it enough? Can it be enough? For all these eons, none of it ever has been, none of them ever have been--- even unchained, even freed, will it be enough to sustain him, enough to give him reason to stay, to care, to live?</p><p><em>---This is enough</em>.</p><p>He recalls those words, spoken in his voice. He recalls then that scene, the tableau spread out in his memory--- a fading, flickering soul devoured by darkness and scorched by light, bleeding itself out as it struggles to hold on long enough to beg a promise of those that had defeated him. Gold eyes (eyes that did not belong to him) meeting a pair of violet, stained with the Void and filled with tears even as a smile pulls at soft lips. He recalls speaking those words to her, he recalls her hand reaching out--- he recalls the end, then, his end, and more importantly he recalls <em>her</em>.</p><p>He recalls her, and he realizes it is her that is calling. How could he have forgotten that melody? Unfinished it may be, but he knows its whole song as well as he knows his own; the song of that whom he had loved, loved and lost eons past--- the song that remains in this world, incomplete and diminished, yet the song that still sings. It still exists, it still lives, and even if it no longer belongs to his lost beloved...he has known she who it belongs to now instead. He has known her, and she has loved him despite everything, and even now she still sings out for him. Even now she is calling. </p><p>The emotion that fills his empty soul then is one he never imagined could exist in one such as him ever again--- how could it? Everything like it had long been devoured by darkness, drowned by grief and despair. And yet it is there, sudden and all at once, filling him with a warmth that had he a form would bring tears to his eyes and steal away breath. </p><p>She calls for him, she is calling for him. For <em>him</em>. After all he has done. After all she has witnessed, has suffered, at the hands of he and his. Even now, her soul sings out for him, lights a way back to her. Even now, she reaches out. Even now, she loves him.</p><p>It is a revelation that sends him into motion, pulling himself away from his aimless drift and throwing himself towards that distant light, towards that song. He does not know how far it is, or how long he has been here, only that he must get to that light. He must get to her. He cannot fade away, he cannot close his eyes and cease to exist within this stream of starlit little souls. There is one soul that yet sings his name, one soul who loves him, one soul who calls for him, and if there is yet one soul that wishes him to remain--- how can he leave them? He has known loneliness and pain, grief and despair so deep it drowned him, and how can he inflict that upon another? He trusts her and her companions to keep their promise, but this is not about that promise. This is not about remembering. This is about soft stolen kisses and shared laughter, a dance to distant music and tear-stained violet eyes. This is about her, and he has the right, he thinks, to be selfish. He has lived and died for his people, now, and for the first time in eons, he has-- he has earned the right to choose for what he lives again, he thinks...and he chooses her.</p><p>He recalls a conversation, then-- of an old story, an old faerie tale he’d mentioned to her; the god of death and a nature spirit, luring her to his realm, trapping her there as his queen, told as a warning and a threat. He recalls her, then, turning it on its head-- what if, she had said, the spirit had come to him willingly, hoping to lure him out of his kingdom of the dead and join her among the living. He knows she had not thought she could. He knows he had not. It was a fantasy, a silly dream, one night of pretending at it being otherwise before they were enemies once more. And yet...and yet here she is, now, singing him back to her. Calling him out of his kingdom. So perhaps in the end it was not quite a fantasy, after all.</p><p>It is then he breaks the surface, and the shock of it steals thought and awareness for a moment, and aether shapes itself instinctively into physical form as he collapses, tumbling from nonexistence into reality, from the stream into the realm of the living, from one plane onto another. He is only soul without body, but the memory of pain jolts at his knees as he falls, crumpling in an undignified heap of black robes upon a familiar street; his city, his illusion, with the sky of shimmering pale green sea far above, dim light streaming down from the surface. He is again beneath the waves, though these are of a different sort, and he blinks blearily up at them. The color of the sea above matches his eyes, that ethereal pale green they had once been, before his body had burnt away in the Sundering--- perhaps they are that color now, bereft of vessel as he is. Perhaps his hair gleams fully white once more, not simply a streak of it winding through another color. He cannot tell. It doesn’t matter. </p><p>He sits himself up, then, absently patting at his robes -- plain, he notes absently, the simple attire of his people, no longer that of a Bringer of Chaos -- and looks around, head swimming. He still hears that call, that song...where is it? Where is she? Why would she be here?</p><p>It doesn’t take him long--- she is there, right there, frozen in place as if a statue, violet eyes finding his and tears forming in them once more. Her clothing is different, she looks a little more worn, but it is her. It is her. In her hand something sits, and it sings his own melody, and as she takes one trembling step and then another he sees what it is. A shard of crystal, perhaps the one he was slain with, stained dark with a piece of his soul. It glows bright, and perhaps that is how she was able to call for him--- the shard of his soul guided her voice to his ears, guided his path back to her. It slips from her fingers then, and she remains still, staring still at him with recognition in her eyes, stunned and hopeful.</p><p>“....Hades?” She says, voice barely above a whisper, and it is the first time in eons that anyone, anyone at all, has spoken his true name. But she says it as if she was always meant to say it, if her voice was made for that word, that name, or his name was made for her to speak it--- his breath hitches despite it being unnecessary for him to breathe, and he lifts his hand to her, trembling. That warmth is in his soul again, overwhelming and bright and soft, and he can hardly speak around it. She is looking at him as if he is a miracle. As if she had wished for this with all her soul, wished for his return. It is unfathomable, and he wonders if he still dreams in the sea of souls. </p><p>But as he holds out his hand, she breaks into a run, and her body makes contact with his presence as she drops into his lap, into his arms, with a wail and a sob. Her weight is heavy and present as she throws her arms around his neck, as her face tucks into his shoulder, and he doesn’t even register shifting to return the embrace, fingers tangling in her long azure hair. Distantly, like a dream, he registers everything at once: how she smells, like an herb garden, like flowers and spice. Her weight, the softness of her hair, the color of it, the sound of her tears, the tightness of her arms around him. The color of her soul, painfully familiar, touched and tainted by the life she’s led and diminished by its incompleteness but still shining bright within her, still singing, joy and relief and love so loud that even with its melody unfinished he can hear it---</p><p>His own face is wet, he realizes, and he cannot remember if he has cried at all since the Sundering. And yet here he is, tears dripping down his face as he clings to her, and a sob rips its way from his lips. First one, and then another, and then they are both lost to tears, freeing and cleansing and stars, stars above, this is real. This is <em>real</em>. She called him back to her, and he is here, and she loves him, and he is loved. </p><p>A hand frees itself and his fingers trace her cheek, and he steers her gently to face him as his lips claim hers, soft and warm--- another promise, this one unspoken. <em>I am here, I am here, I love you, I am here</em>. </p><p>
  <em>….I love you?</em>
</p><p>Oh.</p><p>So he does. </p><p>He laughs into the kiss, breathless and bewildered and too many emotions he has not felt in enough time that he has almost forgotten their names, and she kisses him harder in return, her own promise in it--- <em>I love you too, welcome home, I missed you, you are loved</em>.</p><p>They remain like that, tangled in each other, tears dripping down smiling faces, for...some time. There is no rush. Not in this moment. For right now, he is home again, home with her, and they do not need to know anything other than that. She has called him home, to her side, and he knows in this moment of clarity that he would not be anywhere else. He had made the right choice, to follow her light, follow her song. For all that he has done, all that he has become, for all that is left of him--- she had wanted him back. And so he had come, and for all that is left of him, what remains belongs to her and he gives it willingly. </p><p>They will return to the surface eventually, to whatever else awaits him, awaits them both. But for now...for now, and for the rest of his adamant soul’s existence, for the rest of her fleeting one…</p><p>This is enough.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Fuck you, SE, this is an AU where he comes back now.</p><p>I needed this in my life immediately, and so I did it. I just...I want them to be happy. I do. Heavy inspiration both from Bleach (for the first bit) and FFVII for some of the Lifestream stuff.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. sing with me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“...Brona?”</p><p>The question is soft, hesitant, but it pulls Brona from her light doze, blinking her eyes open to meet Hades’ own, vivid green pair. He’s pushed himself onto an elbow, watching her quietly from where they lay tangled together beneath the covers of her bed. Impulsively, she leans forward to press a kiss to his bare collarbone, the crook of his neck, just because she can, and he lets out a soft laugh and reaches to tangle his hand in her hair. She’s in no mood to continue from earlier, despite the gesture, so she pulls away again, watching him. “Yes?” she asks, still watching him, and his eyes flicker with uncertainty, but he shakes it off and presses on.</p><p>“...there’s something I’d like to try,” he says softly, hand still tangled in her hair, watching her. The look she’d grown so used to in the time she’d first known him, as Emet-Selch, the look of sad and pained recognition he wore when he looked at her...she sees it less and less often now. He knows her for herself, now, not the woman he’d lost long ago. But...that is the least of his troubles, now, she knows that well. To be unbound from Zodiark, freed from his tempering, is to be unbound by the blindness that consumed him, eyes unclouded at last. To see what he so long denied, the life and light of the little souls he’d condemned...to witness the goodness he’d never before been able to find...and to look inward and come to terms with the poison and rot that the eons and darkness had twisted a once-good man into and struggle to find what he would be now--- none of it was easy. But she had not turned away, and never would. “Would you...indulge me?”</p><p>“...of course,” she says, without needing to consider it, and it’s worth it when he smiles. It’s a rare thing, that smile, and each one she treasures as she hopes to see it more often. “...can I ask what it is first, though?” She has to admit, she’s curious. He seems so uncertain about it, after all.</p><p>He pauses, eyes flickering away in thought, and looks back to her. “It...is difficult to put it in words you would understand,” he says finally, and she doesn’t take offense; it means it’s something of Amaurot, most likely, and it’s not that he thinks her unable, she <em>is</em>. Simply by virtue of being sundered. She doesn’t mind that, but the fact that it is something of Amaurot that he wishes to share, even if he can’t put it to words...that means something, she thinks, and she nods at him to go on. “I suppose it is--- it is like your Echo,” says finally. “Or rather what your Echo is a remnant of. We could all...join souls, so to speak. More than what your gift can do, it...was used for many things. Concepts that needed many to create, any sort of task that required that sort of synchronicity…” He trails off, and a dusting of pink colors his cheeks, and her own cheeks flare hot at the implication. “...more--- more intimate…well.” He manages, and she thinks it’s almost sweet, how they can lay here after making love (not for the first time, either) and he is--- used to that, unashamed, while something like this can send him blushing and awkward like a young boy. “I don’t know if it can...be the same, but the Echo, and how you called to me…” He adds, still red, and she understands. </p><p>“Oh,” she says, coloring deeper. If for him something like that is more intimate, more precious, more meaningful than physical sex was, and he wishes to--- oh. “Yes,” she says, something fluttering in her chest like a dozen butterflies. “I...yes. It...it’s worth trying.” She can’t imagine what it’s like, to twine two souls together--- but the Echo is a ghost of that, isn’t it? Touching another’s soul, seeing their memories and emotions...what he speaks of is similar, only on a far grander scale. She recalls Elidibus (ugh) speaking of the gift and and the truth of it, and so his words are proved true as well. But thoughts of that are not necessary, now, and she shifts to sit up better herself as he does, watching him for guidance. This is his to lead, now, and she waits for him to show her how to follow.</p><p>He reaches for her gently, cupping her face in his hands and pulling her close, forehead pressed to forehead. “Close your eyes,” he murmurs to her, voice distant--- lost in memories, perhaps, of doing this before, speaking the same words to another. But she cannot hold that against him; he is made of memories, and those are all he has left. She closes her eyes, reaching to place her hands atop his, listening to their steady soft breathing and the slow pulse of their hearts. “Close your eyes,” he repeats, gentle and soft, “and listen. Listen to our breath, our hearts. Listen for the sound of our souls. Yours and mine, together, two harmonies becoming one.” He goes quiet again a moment. “Sing with me, Brona,” he whispers, and she does.</p><p>It isn’t easy, at first; she has never been able to use the Echo at will, and it is hard to pull on it when she hardly understands it, but she listens to his voice, his breathing, his steady heart, and...and she can hear it. He has to do much of the work to reach out, a soft sound that isn’t a sound at all, and she feels its warmth--- cannot guess at its color, though she has always wondered--- and reaches out with whatever she can; her aether, perhaps, at first, if just to give him something to follow towards her own soul, and it works. She begins to hear another soft sound, one that she knows in her bones is <em>hers</em>, is <em>her</em>, and she hears it as if it’s two musicians, playing their own instruments but slowly harmonizing with one another, playing in time and in tune until the melody is one. And then she is gone.</p><p>Not gone, not entirely--- she is still Brona, but she is at the same time Brona-and-Hades, both of them as one, and--- maybe she’s crying, she can’t tell. Physical things seem so distant, so unnecessary. She struggles a little to keep up, an amateur musician playing alongside a maestro, but he supports her, aids her, fills in the gaps of her weakness without trying. She feels his emotions as her own, his love, his gratitude, his reverence and awe--- she is beautiful to him, impossible. She is the woman he once loved, but she is not, she is not, and there is a thread of sorrow in that but he sees her, now, sees the woman she is now. He sees beauty in her madness, her fire, her passion and her fierce kindness, the compassion she holds despite horrors; the strength of will to be good, be kind, be gentle, when all the world she had grown up in was not, when she has been hurt so deeply by so much. He sees her, as herself, and he is awed every day, relearning the music of a soul that had been once so familiar, a stranger now but still beautiful, still beloved.</p><p>She sees herself in his eyes, sees her smile at him, reach out, offer him love and--- not forgiveness, never that, but understanding. Love without condition, love for a man he cannot himself see. She sees him as he sees himself, too, lost and empty, leeched of rot and poison but without that he is ashes and dust --- yet she sees a man, has seen a man even when that terrible darkness drowned him in its venom, left him to fester in grief and pain and unhealed wounds, and twisted him to a monster. She sees him and in her eyes he is whole in a way he has not been in eons, broken and battered but a man; she knows him and sits unafraid, loves unrestrained. </p><p>In turn she sings to him what she sees in him. The man she sees, every memory and emotion of it she can show him. The light in his eyes as he speaks of his home to her. The smile on his face, rare and soft and sad but present. His laugh, his gentle touch, his kindness. And before that--- the most important part. She sings to him of a laugh unrestrained, human and delighted, shared between two people beneath a tree lit by unending light. A flower crown sitting atop wine-colored hair, soft eyes beneath. Gentle teases and shared humor, two disheveled people wet and grinning with mischief--- twice the closeness of their faces, the stillness of the moment, a kiss near to happening and never unwanted. She sings of a dance, hand in hand, a kiss in a closed room, a shiny crimson fruit, round and heavy, held out like a gift, an offer, a plea. She shows him love in those moments, love for a man sad and gentle and older than the moon, a man she reached for through cracks in the mask, a man she sees still, loves still.</p><p>She cannot help but show him herself, too; lonely, unloved, unable to believe she can be loved in such a way--- too long she spent giving all of herself to scavengers, opportunists who took that devotion and took and took and gave naught back. But he loves her, his love is real and present and she feels it in her soul now, the way he looks at her, the way he touches her, the way he gives her control, power, the ability to feel like she has him as much as he has her, that he is hers as she is his. He loves her and she loves him, loves that he loves her, loves being loved, treasures it--- she is Brona, and she is loved, and she loves him for it, her sweet sad old soul, lost in his pain; she will find him again, always. </p><p>She cannot keep the time--- it could be bells like this, or moments, but he leads her away eventually, gently, slowing the song of their souls and guides her back to herself. She shakes the stars from her eyes, face wet with tears and heart racing, and focuses again on the room around them, on Hades--- his face is wet too, and he looks at her with the same reverence she had felt from him, and he moves forward, hands still cupping her face, to kiss her. It feels both more and less intimate, now, the kiss, and she returns it, moving to tangle her hands in his hair.</p><p>“Brona,” he whispers, voice awed and choked with tears and emotion. “Oh, <em>Brona</em>...”</p><p>“<em>Hades</em>,” she whispers back. What else can be said? Tears spill anew at his name on her lips, a benediction, his true name spoken with such love and gentleness, and his hands falter, slip to her waist, and she pulls him close as he cries, stroking his hair as he holds her, his face tucked in her shoulder.</p><p>“I love you,” she says, though--- he knows. He knows, and she knows, more than any words could ever say, but...she is only mortal, and words will still be necessary for her. Words speak it real, words speak it into existence like they could once create anything they wished. “I love you. I always will.”</p><p>His sobs hiccup and fade, and he shifts to look up at her, eyes glittering with tears. “I love you,” he whispers back. “I love you. Thank you.”</p><p>They drift off like that together, then, tangled in each other’s arms; two people, both loved.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I actually wrote this before I wrote any of the others in this collection, and before 5.2, but in the end I didn't need to change much at all! It works almost better now.</p><p>So...so soft...soul sharing...</p><p>Addendum; at this point you can assume Hades has a vessel now, likely an empty clone from the Crystal Tower in Norvrandt. There was simply no good place to fit that fact in any of these, but it is important to keep in mind!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. in the garden</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Small spoilers for 5.2.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You didn’t have to come with me, you know.”</p>
<p>It’s quiet on the saltmoor, now, the only real sound the click of her heels and the softer tread of his boots as they walk across overgrown paving amid crumbling old buildings. The pyramid still stands, of course it does, and a few other structures built with the Mhachi arts are untouched by time, but the main bulk of the old city -- similar in architecture to the empty floating refuge of Dun Scaith -- is in ruins. They hadn’t come through this way with the Redbills, no, but Brona had decided to visit now; some things had survived, and Mhachi arts weren’t exactly known for fading with time, so perhaps, she had reasoned, there might be tomes that <em>didn’t</em> have fun and exciting ways to kill someone in it, but instead...something that might help them, whether it be retrieving the Scions from the First, or...well, alright, give her a fun and exciting way to deal with Elidibus when nothing else could. If nothing else, she might be able to find tomes on the Void, and help Gaia with her so-called ‘faerie’.</p>
<p>She hadn’t really expected Hades to invite himself along with her. Not that she truly minded; to spend any time at him with all was a blessing and a miracle she still found herself doubting the reality of, at times. For him to be alive and breathing, untempered and here beside her...it was more than she had dreamed possible, when he had faded into nothing within that illusory city of his own past. Any time at all with him felt--- it felt stolen from the clutching hands of death, and she still wondered, every so often, if she was dreaming. The thought of that makes her frown faintly, and she catches up his hand in hers as they walk. His fingers curl around her own automatically, gently but with a firm grip as if he senses her feelings (and maybe he does, with how he can see souls so clearly, with what the Echo is only a fraction of), and her chest untwists slightly.</p>
<p>“True enough,” he replies, eyes shifting to look at her even if he doesn’t turn his head from watching the path ahead. “But I wanted to. This was your home, once, was it not? I showed you mine...I thought I would see yours, as well.” She looks up at him -- not so much as she once would have, now that he wears his true face; he is not so tall as Solus was, though still tall, and she’s still getting used to the differences; his hair is softer, a little longer, and entirely white, and his face is somewhat less angled, though still with the same lines of exhaustion and stress, the same shadows -- and he tilts his head towards her now, a small crooked smile sliding onto his lips. “I never came to Mhach, during the war. The lives I led then were in Amdapor, for the most part. I can never remember if any of us visited Nym, but I had my city, and...” He pauses, hesitant, knowing the sensitive edges of the topic, but her slight nod lets him continue. “Igeyorhm had Mhach, though I know Lahabrea still supervised her, at times. He bounced around, though, really. The man could never quite sit still, always working.”</p>
<p>Brona smiles faintly, swinging their joined hands. “The more you tell me about him, the more he reminds me of someone I know,” she muses. “Maybe I should introduce you sometime. He might entertain you.” A half-mad workaholic with a tendency towards lectures and cackling? She was endlessly reminded of Severian, with that; and it made her wonder who he had lost in the Final Days or the Sundering, to drive him to such desperate mania? It wasn’t important now, she supposed, with him gone, and she didn’t want to upset Hades by asking after such a thing, but she did wonder.</p>
<p>She sighs, though, her smile fading as she returns her gaze to the ruins around them. “But...really, there’s not much to see. Or rather-- there is, I suppose, but...” She chews her bottom lip, knowing Hades’ gaze is still on her, and lets out a breath. There’s no harm in the truth. She still feels bad about it, or at least...feels <em>something</em>, but-- either way. To tell Hades feels almost natural. To trust him with her uglier bits like he had shown her his so freely.</p>
<p>“I don’t really feel...anything, about this place,” she confesses to him. “I know I lived here most of my life; I don’t recall being possessed, so for me this place still feels like I was just here three years ago, and yet--- and yet to see it in such a state, I...don’t feel anything. Not sadness, or nostalgia, or even melancholy. I don’t miss it. I suppose I feel a little guilty that I don’t, but I-- it’s just empty, to me. Just ruins.” She laughs, sharp and bitter and faintly pained. “Seeing Amaurot made me feel more than seeing this, and I don’t even remember it.”</p>
<p>Hades stops, turning fully to face her, and his face holds no real judgement like she’d almost feared it would -- how could she dismiss her home so completely, she’d thought he might think, when he had given all he had and more to try and bring his back? -- but only soft sorrow and sympathy. He brings his free hand to her face, and she leans into its warmth. “Why?” He asks, gently. “I know what it did to you, in the end,” he says softly, running his thumb along the brand on her cheek, the mark of her torment at the last. “But...to have nothing at all?”</p>
<p>“Nothing,” she agrees, closing her eyes. “...my parents died when I was three,” she tells him quietly, though there’s little emotion it in, just the empty melancholy that had been all she could really feel until she’d come here again, found a new crystal and a new staff, and took her fire back from the black hole in her chest where it had gone. “I barely remember them. My brother raised me; he was ten years older. He...he died when I was fourteen. It must have been in a battle, I know he was a combat medic. He was gone a lot, and I was in the middle of my studies, and one day I just...walked into my classroom, and there he was. Not my brother any longer, just a...a garden of spores and fungus.” She tips forward slightly to rest her head on his chest, and his hand shifts to card gently through her hair. “I had no one, after that, and never did,” she tells him. “I had nothing but my own garden, my plants, my studies. This city...any reason I had to care about it died with my brother, my parents, my---” Her voice chokes off and she can’t find a way to tell him about that, somehow ashamed of it, the one thing that still <em>hurts</em> despite the rest of it just being numb. “It’s just ruins to me. There’s nothing left here that I love, there never was.”</p>
<p>She feels him let go of her hand, and his arms come around her in an embrace, and she instinctively returns it. “I’m sorry,” he says, and she hears the weight of his years in the words, and she knows that his expression has gone sad and pained, his eyes distant with the burden he carries, all the pain and grief he will never shake even without Zodiark’s chains on his soul. “Everyone should have a home of some kind. That this isn’t…”</p>
<p>“My home is the Scions,” she says softly, a faint smile returning to her face as she looks up at him again. “My friends. My home is <em>you</em>, Hades. The people. That’s all I need.” He blinks, stunned -- she thinks he’ll always be stunned by her affection, her warmth, her love; he had never expected her to fall for him, she thinks, and certainly never expected her to continue to love him, past his death and onto his return, even now, not knowing what he’d done and what he’d become -- and she stands on her toes to kiss him, and he returns it, brief and fond.</p>
<p>“Come on, then,” he says, tugging her hand a little once they break apart. “Let’s fetch what you came for, shall we? I wouldn’t want you to stay here longer than necessary, if it isn’t a pleasant stay.” He pauses, though, a few paces along, and tilts his head at her. “Though...do me one small indulgence, my dear?” He asks. “Was there...at least one place you recall with some fondness? Anything, anywhere. If there was, I would like to see it before we go.”</p>
<p>Brona frowns faintly in thought, tilting her head. “...there is one place,” she says finally, a small smile settling. “I’ll take you there when we’re done.” </p>
<p>It doesn’t take more than a few bells to collect what she can, tucking the tomes into her bag and grateful once again for whatever strange enchantments are woven into adventurers’ packs that they can carry far too much without the weight of it all. There aren’t many that are useful, really, but she takes a few she thinks might be, and a few she thinks Y’shtola and Urianger might appreciate as well...and, alright, so she grabs a few for herself. No one will complain, they’re all dead. After that, though, she keeps her promise, and tugs him along as the sun begins to make its descent below the horizon. That’s good, she thinks. The place they’re going has a wonderful view of the sunset.</p>
<p>She leads him to a series of buildings set alongside a gentle cliffside, and around the back of one to a path that takes them up it, to an outcrop that juts out and connects onto the roof of another of the buildings. The roof is in one piece, thankfully, and half of it is taken up by the ancient, aging frame of what was once a greenhouse. There’s a cracked stone bench along the opposite side of the roof to it, against the low wall that traces its edges, and Brona steps onto the roof and walks over to stand beside what was once the greenhouse’s door, staring out over the cityscape below--- it <em>does</em> have a beautiful view, and it even makes the ruins look lovely, the light of dusk curling across old stone and brick and mortar and the quiet decay of what was once a thriving metropolis. </p>
<p>Hades comes to stand beside her, and she leans against him. “...was this yours?” He asks her, tangling his hand in hers. “Your greenhouse.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” she tells him quietly. “The building is a residential one; I lived here after my brother died, and all the way to the end. No one was using the roof, so I got permission to set up here. It had a wonderful view, and no one bothered me up here, and...it was peaceful.” She can’t say the memories are happy, really, but...she had felt at peace, among the plants and flowers and her work. She had felt content. </p>
<p>She turns to look at it, now, and finds it a ruin as well, twisted metal and stone framework, the glass shattered and long since gone after all these centuries, the insides a mess of weeds and dead things and old soil. It’s unrecognizable as hers, just another skeleton, and she closes her eyes and buries into Hades’ side. He puts an arm around her for a long moment, but then he tugs her along, and she finds herself being tucked onto the bench. She blinks at him, but he presses a kiss to her forehead and brushes some hair out of her face. “Sit a moment,” he tells her. “And close your eyes. I’ll tell you when to open them again.”</p>
<p>“...alright,” she says after a moment, and does as she’s told. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, but after a moment she gasps-- she can feel magic in the air. No, not magic; aether. Thick and tangible, almost like being in Amaurot, but--- gentle, light and soft along her skin, warm and feeling...feeling like <em>Hades</em>. What is he doing, she wonders, and almost wants to open her eyes, but she keeps her word and keeps them closed, hands folded in her lap.</p>
<p>Eventually the feeling fades from the air, and she feels Hades take her hand. “Now,” he says from where he seems to be standing at her side. “Open your eyes.”</p>
<p>She does so, and then all she can do is gasp, tears springing into her eyes as her free hand flies to her mouth.</p>
<p>All she sees is <em>green</em>. No, not green. A rainbow of color. The whole roof has been turned into a field of flowers, end to end, lush grass and soft moss coating every surface as wildflowers of every shade spring forth from it all, lit by the sunset. She can name every one, but there are some she doesn’t know and--- and it even coats the old greenhouse, flowering vines twisting along up the framework, the blooms reaching towards the heavens as a blossoming tree sprouts from within it, long branches dripping with red flowers. A thin path of soft soil breaks the green, leading from the bench where they stand to the outcrop that will take them down again, but the rest of it is all...it’s all green, growing things, endless colors, and more than that it is <em>life</em>, life in this dead place. “Oh,” she gasps out as her tears begin to fall. “Oh, <em>Hades</em>...”</p>
<p>“It was yours once, the only place that meant something to you in this empty city,” he tells her, softly, still holding her hand. “I simply gave it back to you. It is yours again, my love. Your garden.” He sits down beside her, hand still around hers, and his eyes are still fixed upon her expression. “You have given me far more than I deserve,” he murmurs. “Every day you give me something I never dreamed I would have again, not in this sundered world, no matter how many lives I had lived. It...it is the least I can do, Brona, to give you something in return. It is not nearly enough to match what you give me, but one day I hope that I can.”</p>
<p>Brona tears her gaze from the garden to look at him, eyes still wet with tears of awe and gratitude, and she flings her arms around his neck, kissing him fiercely. “Oh, Hades, you silly fool,” she gasps out. “You--- you’re here. You’re alive. You’re <em>mine</em>. Every day you are beside me, every day I wake up next to you, every day you love me, you give me <em>everything</em>.” She leans against him, and his arms come to hold her. “You aren’t the only one who never dreamed they could ever have something like this,” she tells him softly. “I never expected to be loved. I didn’t think I could be. But here you are, and you love me, and you--- you came back to me. You <em>came back</em>.” She kisses him again, softer. “That alone...that alone is enough.”</p>
<p><em>This is enough</em>. The words he had whispered to her in his last moments as Emet-Selch, hole through his being, as he was finally freed, as he finally was able to see her and her love for what it was, see them and their souls and their fierce goodness for what they were, no longer blinded by darkness--- they ring in her head, and she thinks he could never have been more right. This is enough. Just him, just her, that they love one another this much, when they both never imagined it could happen...it’s enough. Everything else...well, she can’t say she doesn’t need it, or won’t, when her insecurities rear their ugly heads as she knows they will, and he can’t say he won’t need it, when his pain and grief threaten to drown him as they will always try to…</p>
<p>But it all just makes it <em>more</em> than enough.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Bless my friend for giving me this prompt, and gods, it was wonderful to write. Creation magic is beautiful, isn't it?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. a night on the town</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kugane was bustling, as it always was -- it wasn’t Brona’s favorite city, but there was something to be said for how...peaceful it felt. There was a sense of calm here, really, that she didn’t think any other city quite matched. Perhaps it was the Sekiseigumi, the way they refused to allow any sort of violence? The way the embassies stood there on the street by the Ruby Bazaar, the Thavnairian one, and the Hannish one, and even the Garlean one, all side by side with the same civility. It was calm and relaxing, and she supposes the two of them need that after everything that’s happened. A bit of a break, a day where neither has to think about anything but enjoying themselves. Far away from Eorzea, far away from the First. </p>
<p>And...well, she <em>did</em> have a surprise planned for Hades. The trick was just that she hoped he wouldn’t notice the airship until it came closer to dock and let the theatregoers board. She’d just have to make sure he didn’t, though. And that wasn’t so hard-- distractions were easy to come by in Kugane, after all.</p>
<p>To her surprise, Hades had confessed upon arrival he’d never been to Kugane-- as Solus, he’d been to Othard to see the Burn, of course, but he had never personally visited much of anywhere outside Ilsabard, especially in his later years. (It was still a little strange to think of him as the late first Garlean Emperor, especially now that he didn’t wear that face, but...she supposed she did like it when she was reminded. It gave him, gave them both, something to ground him in this world, in the present, rather than the past and his lost home.) But that just meant the city was new to him, though he knew <em>of</em> it, and the fascinated smile it brought to his face was worth it.</p>
<p>She took him on a tour of the city, or at least the parts of it open to foreigners, and though she supposed she should be paying more attention to her surrounds, she’d seen it all before-- and Hades’ reactions were more important to her, anyway. After the tour she’d taken him back to the Kogane Dori market and they’d walked through it, looking in all the shops and stopping every so often to buy snacks from street vendors cooking up their wares on the spot in small carts or storefronts. She’d never spent much time in the market before, either, and so it was fun for both of them; there were so many things to buy, things she’d never seen before, all sorts of beautiful handmade clothing and jewelry and trinkets, and it was absolutely fascinating. It made her both remember that she’d only been in the world of the present day for a tiny bit over three years, and that there was still so much she hadn’t seen and done, and be reminded again just how amazing this world was, how incredible it was in comparison to her dreary, cold life in Mhach.</p>
<p>The dresses --- <em>kimono</em>, they were called; it was hard to pick up foreign words with the Echo, but she recalled some things Alan had said and explained and Hades seemed to have an easier time with parsing other languages despite his own ability to understand them all --- were gorgeous, and though honestly she hadn’t intended to buy one...the shopkeepers were a very enthusiastic older couple, and insisted upon finding the perfect one for her to try on. She had to admit it was beautiful, the silk a deep regal purple that faded into gloom purple, pattered with butterflies in shades of midnight and royal blue, and tied with a belt (<em>obi</em>?) of ice blue and a dark red cord. They’d even given her a pretty hairpin of carved and lacquered wood, shaped to look like flowers and painted red and gold and black. She did have the gil, but hadn’t meant to buy it, but...when they’d pushed her out of the dressing room to show Hades, the look on his face had made her heart skip a beat. The light in his eyes, the red in his cheeks, the way his lips parted like he was seeing-- like he was seeing something <em>awe-inspiring</em>. She had never felt very awe-inspiring, or even beautiful, really, until Hades. Perhaps she was objectively attractive, she supposed, but--- knowing that and <em>feeling</em> like you were, those were two very different things, she knew that well. She had never felt pretty, or like she could cause any sort of--- she’d never felt like anyone thought her worth feeling wonder over, or awe. But to see that expression on his face and know <em>she</em> had put it there, that was...well, she bought the kimono and hairpin both. How could she not, when it made her feel like this? </p>
<p>They paused outside the shop, and Brona startled as she felt Hades’ hands come up to her hair, gentle fingers pulling the dark blue strands back and quietly weaving them into a braid, putting her hair up properly with the hairpin before slipping to press a gentle kiss to the corner of her mouth. Well, she thought, as he took her hand in his-- at least she was dressed for the show tonight, even if he still didn’t know they were going to one. </p>
<p>They left the markets closer to dinnertime, Brona slipping her packages into her bag --- a few silk hair ribbons for Ryne and a small Hingan makeup kit for Gaia, she hadn’t been able to resist, as well as a few packages of tea and dried herbs and a lovely blue-and-white ceramic tea set for herself (as well as something wrapped neatly to hide from Hades) --- as she led Hades to Shiokaze to eat; as they walked across the bridge, though, he stopped dead, squeezing her hand and tugging her to the railing, staring up in wonder and amazement at the sky: the <em>Prima Vista</em> was coming in to dock at this time, as she knew it was, and she smiled at him.</p>
<p>“It--- that’s---” He managed, eyes huge, and he turned to her, seeing her smile. “You minx!” He cried, kissing her in delight. “You planned this! Is there a show tonight, is that what this is about? Did you--- are we to see a <em>show?”</em></p>
<p>Brona laughed, smile growing wider at his obvious, almost childlike excitement. “Yes, Hades,” she told him warmly. “I called ahead to ask Jenomis when their next performance was, so I could be sure to bring you to see it. We have a few bells yet, so there’s time for dinner, and then we’ll go see them before the performance. I’m sure you’ll want to say hello, right?” Her smile grew a bit mischievous. “I <em>did</em> recall him saying something about the dear late Solus paying for the construction of their ship, after all…” Well, that and that they had given him many a private performance before his ‘death’, but she didn’t need to tell him something he already knew. </p>
<p>“Oh, of course I did!” He said brightly, leaning half over the railing with a light in his eyes. “They’re brilliant, <em>he’s</em> brilliant! I’ve always loved watching you mortals create, in your own way, with your own two hands--- the long way, not like us; it’s got its own charm, you know, and I can see that even clearer now--- and ah, faerie tales, your way of <em>remembering</em>…” He looked to her and smiled, his eyes shining despite some soft bittersweet, rueful sorrow in his eyes. “Of course I would support him, all the arts I could, even if--- well, you know.” He shook his head, and she put her hand over his. She hadn't thought about it, had she? She’d recalled how Solus had loved them, but it hadn’t occurred to her that until now his love for the arts, for the theatre, had been tainted by his tempering, his inability to love and appreciate mortals despite how hard he had tried. She...was glad, even more so now, that she had brought him tonight. To give him the chance to see something he had so loved with eyes now unclouded, a heart and soul unbound. “I didn’t know you knew him, though!” He added, nudging her gently with a smile back on his face. “I had been worried! Varis was <em>ever</em> such a boring stick-in-the-mud about his troupe, I’d feared the worst after he got his mitts on the throne--- is there a story here, my dear?”</p>
<p>“Oh, yes,” Brona said, eyes sparkling wickedly again. “The four of us Warriors ran into Alma not long after freeing Ala Mhigo and all that--- she was looking for help, and Cid had recommended us to her, of course, given our penchant for getting into all sorts of trouble.” She decided not to tell him about...the more unpleasant parts of it, given the context, and smiled. “Suffice it to say we got into a great deal of trouble, but on the other hand...I’m sure you know of Jenomis’ great work?” She paused for effect. “Well, ‘tis safe to say we helped him finish it.”</p>
<p>“The--- you found him <em>Ivalice!”</em> Hades gasped, leaning in to kiss her again. “I knew it was real, of course, and I knew his papers for truth and his story for reality, but of course I couldn’t <em>tell</em> him. Even so, I did have hope he’d get his answers and finish that play--- oh, did he <em>really?”</em> She nodded, and then gasped as he picked her up and spun her, laughing. “Oh, Brona, my dear beautiful Brona! You do so get into the best sorts of trouble, don’t you? Solving his ages-old mystery, <em>stars</em>, and I get to <em>see</em> it! I never imagined I would have the <em>time</em>, or the <em>ability--</em>” He broke off, something wondering and amazed in his expression. “I’ll get to <em>see</em> it,” he murmured, and she thought he finally realized what she had just earlier. “Oh, Brona, thank you for this...”</p>
<p>“Thank me after the show?” She suggested, and stepped away from the railing after leaning up to kiss him briefly in turn. “Come on, now, if you’d like time to say hello, we should hurry and eat. Shiokaze isn’t far, and the proprietress is quite nice.”</p>
<p>“Of course, of course,” he agreed. “If we may, if we have time--- might we not stop back at the markets before we board? There’s something I’d like to purchase, now that I know what we’re up to this evening.”</p>
<p>She agreed --- of course she did --- and tugged him along to the Hostelry. It was lively as always, as the sun began its descent, and in the din of the cheery crowd she told him the story of their adventures in Ivalice, about the city, and the auracite, about Ridorana and Goug and Orbonne, the Zodiac Braves and Ultima. He listened raptly, visibly hanging on her every word, and she...she still couldn’t quite wrap her head around that. That he loved her so much, that he was hers as much as she his; that her words, her actions, mattered in his eyes. All of her relationship before, the string of uncaring men a lonely and desperate young woman had flung herself at...she had given her all, and received naught in turn. But in Hades’ eyes, she--- all that she gave was appreciated, <em>valued</em>, and he gave his all back in turn. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to it; it would always stun her and she would always marvel at it, but she wasn’t sure that was a bad thing...it just made her love him all the more.</p>
<p>Dinner itself was enjoyable, too-- she got to giggle over Hades struggling to figure out how to wield his chopsticks ( “Don’t you laugh, I can’t be good at <em>everything!”</em> ), and together they shared quite a lovely meal; she’d had far stranger things in her life than what Hingan cuisine had to offer, and she had decided she quite liked <em>sushi</em>. Raw fish was hardly the worst thing she’d eaten, and it was delicious besides. Hades found he loved it too --- he had confessed to being a somewhat picky eater, disliking any sort of meat but seafood, so it suited him just fine --- and they split a whole platter of it, though Brona did order herself a bowl of <em>tempura udon</em> as well, and Hades had decided to try something called <em>unadon</em>, which turned out to be eel on rice, and which he decided was both delightful and very amusing, and turned into him telling her a few amusing stories of the stranger things he and his brother had tricked one another or the other Convocants into eating. Dinner went quickly, as did most of a bottle of <em>sake</em>, and together they hurried off to the market to fetch whatever it was Hades sought to purchase before the show.</p>
<p>What he wanted to purchase, it turned out, was sweets. As he explained to her on the way, tugging her along with that childlike joy on his face once more, as Solus he had always given the young Lexentale children sweets when he met them during one of Jenomis’ private performances, as he had always been fond of little ones no matter whatever else he suffered, and he felt as if he should do so now, as well. Even if they did not know him as Solus, and would not, it felt...he felt he had to carry on his own tradition. Brona thought that was sweet, really, a glimmer of Hades that shone through even in the darkest of times, when he was naught but an Ascian wearing the face of an emperor, and so of course she helped him look for what to buy the young siblings, peppering the young woman at the sweets stall with questions and descriptions of the two.</p>
<p>They came away not too long later with two small bags, as well as two little cups of a sweet sort of jelly dessert for themselves that they ate along the way to the pier. Hades paused before they arrived, a glimmer of mischief in his eyes as he turned to her and with a slight gesture made their empty cups vanish. “Now,” he scolded fondly. “Since you didn’t tell me we’d be going to a show, I’ve hardly dressed for the occasion. Give me a moment, though, and I can fix that--” She rolled her eyes, crossing her arms with a smile and a raised eyebrow as she watched him. Of course, it was with a snap of his fingers and a wink that he changed his clothes, and despite her amusement she couldn't help but flush slightly. Even if he was quite dramatic about it, he <em>did</em> know how to dress; a jet black formal suit with a white shirt beneath and a crimson-red cravat at his neck, with white gloves and dark leather boots and a small kerchief of a dark bluish-green tucked in his breast pocket. “There,” he said softly, kissing her cheek. “Much better.”</p>
<p>“Such a showoff,” she teased him, kissing him in turn, before brushing the kerchief with her fingers. “This is lovely,” she mused. “But I’m surprised, green doesn’t seem like your color.”</p>
<p>He caught her fingers in his, bringing them to his lips briefly, and his eyes shone with something soft as he looked at her. “It isn’t, technically speaking,” he murmured. “It’s <em>yours</em>. This is the color of your soul, my dear.” He smiled softly at the look of wonder on her face. “We would wear on our wrists the colors of the souls of our beloveds, in Amaurot. Somewhere easy to conceal, as we kept ourselves from standing out, but somewhere close to us, easy to show if we so chose. It is a tradition I...given my Sight, I could never bring myself to give it up.” His hand found its way to her hair, brushing some strands behind her ear. “For the longest time, I found it too painful to wear this color; I swore to myself I would again only when she was with me once more. And though she is not, and never will be...you <em>are</em>. <em>You</em> are, Brona, and for <em>you</em>, I can wear it again.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” she whispered, unable to say much else, and leaned in to kiss him. “Then...who is the red for, Hades?” She asked curiously, a little smile on her face. “And...for my sake, what color is yours?”</p>
<p>He smiled sadly, tugging at his cravat lightly. “...a dear friend,” he said simply, eyes full of a sort of guilty sorrow. “One I will never see again. Don’t worry too much about it, though, my dear, it...I think I said goodbye to him a long time ago.” The look in his eyes betrayed his true feelings on it, or him, though, and she reached to give his hand a squeeze of comfort. He managed a smile, and shook his head briefly, eyes growing warm once more. “As for my own...well, you wear it already.” He tugged at the sleeve of her kimono gently. “This particular shade of purple, the reddish sort. A coincidence, perhaps, but one I will not argue with.”</p>
<p>“Oh, is it really?” She asked, looking down at her clothes and then back up at him with a smile. “I’ll remember that,” she told him. “See what I can find to wear on me normally. It feels only fair, after all. It’s a lovely tradition, Hades.”</p>
<p>That made him smile and kiss her cheek again, but it <em>was</em> getting late again, so she tugged him along to the airship landing, finding the troupe member there and greeting them warmly; they returned it with the same warmth, happy to see her, and took them up personally -- not to the stage itself, but to the backstage area, the meeting room where they’d all spent time, so that she could greet them before the show. Alma, already in costume, looked up as the doors opened, and brightened considerably, running to her with a smile on her face. “Brona, you came!” She said happily, hugging her. “I was so looking forward to seeing you tonight when Father said you would be joining us for the performance! You look so lovely, did you just get that kimono?” She paused, looking around her at Hades, who was smiling already, eyes soft. “And who is that? Father said you’d be bringing a guest, but…”</p>
<p>“Hello to you too, Alma,” Brona said warmly, returning the embrace. “I did, isn’t it lovely? And this is Hades,” she told her. “He’s...well.” She winked. “He’s someone very special to me, and I thought he would very much like to see your performance as well, so I brought him tonight.”</p>
<p>Alma blinked, and then giggled. “Ohhh, so it’s a <em>date</em>,” she teased brightly. “That’s lovely, Brona! I hope he enjoys the show, then!” She turned to him, then, curtseying politely. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Hades. Any friend of Brona’s is a friend of ours, and welcome aboard the <em>Prima Vista</em>.” She paused, glancing over her shoulder as her brother approached curiously. “Isn’t that right, Ramza?”</p>
<p>“I don’t see why not,” he said, bemused and putting a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “Nice to meet you, too,” he added. “We can’t take too much time to say hello, you know, we’ve got to be onstage soon, and they’ve got to be in their seats.”</p>
<p>“I know, I know,” Alma reassured him, and turned back to Hades. “Really, though, it’s truly a pleasure. Has Brona told you about us?”</p>
<p>Hades -- who had sketched a bow of his own when she curtseyed -- smiled warmly at her. “Oh, she had no need, dear,” he told her, voice unable to keep from mirroring the fondness in his eyes. “I’m from Ilsabard, originally,” he explained, the lie coming easy (he must be used to that sort of thing, she thought, and it <em>was</em> a good enough excuse, close to his actual recent life without suspicion). “And I’ve had the pleasure of seeing the Majestic perform before, a handful of times. I’ve always loved the theatre, and it broke my heart to hear of your exile from Garlemald. I’m delighted to see you all well, and performing just as you always have--- and I’m looking forward to seeing <em>this</em> particular show, if Brona’s told me true of what it is! It was quite the surprise.”</p>
<p>Ramza chuckled, shaking his head. “Well, it’s good to know you’ve heard of us,” he said, still vaguely bemused. “And I appreciate your concern. Father will be happy to hear you’re such an avid fan, and I <em>do</em> hope you enjoy it-- Brona has probably already told you of the misadventures it took to finish it!”</p>
<p>“She certainly has,” Hades replied, amused and still fond, rummaging in his pockets as he spoke. “She has the most fascinating tales to tell...always getting into the most incredible situations, my Brona. And the two of you, as well! I can’t imagine.” That said, he produced the two small packages from his pocket with a smile. “When she told me she was going to introduce me to you, I thought I would bring along a little gift; it’s the polite thing to do, after all, and I have <em>always</em> been fond of doing so. It’s the least you two deserve for the recent troubles.”</p>
<p>“Oh!” Alma gasped in surprise, accepting her package with a small and opening it slightly, beaming as she did so. “Ah, this is--- that Hingan sugar candy! I’ve tried it once, it’s delicious, thank you, Hades!” She turned to her brother. “What did he get you, Ramza?”</p>
<p>Ramza made a slight face at the rainbow of sugary bits in his sister’s package before looking at his own and softening, smiling faintly. “I think it’s called, uh...<em>mochi</em>? Those rice cakes.” He glanced up at Hades. “Thank you,” he added. “It was kind of you.”</p>
<p>“Now, don’t eat all that before the show, you two,” came a voice, and Jenomis wandered over with a smile on his face. “Goodness. First the late Emperor, now you. When will people learn to stop giving my children sweets <em>before</em> they’re to go onstage? Brona, <em>really</em>, your paramour is a terrible enabler.”</p>
<p>Hades laughed. “That’s part of the fun of spoiling <em>other people’s</em> children,” he said mildly, shaking his head, but then offered his hand. “It’s a pleasure,” he told him, still warm and fond. “As I told the children, I’ve seen your performances before, and I’m delighted to see you all safe and well. I’m looking forward to tonight--- congratulations for finishing your work, by the way.”</p>
<p>“Thank you-- Hades, was it? I appreciate both the praise and the congratulations,” Jenomis replied. “I’m glad to know there are people not just in Garlemald who appreciate the arts, and I am certainly looking forward to hearing your thoughts after the show.” He smiled. “I’m glad Brona is going to get a chance to see it as well; did she mention she didn’t? We gave Cid and her friends a private performance, and I was sorry she missed it.”</p>
<p>Brona laughed, a little embarrassed. “I did mention that, yes,” she said, flushing. “I’m sorry I missed it, too. That last battle took more out of me than I’d expected...but here I am, now, and I truly am looking forward to seeing it.” She didn’t know any of the faerie tales told nowadays, not really. Mhachi stories had ever been...very uniquely Mhachi, really. She knew she’d missed out on a lot, and she very much was looking forward to seeing the full story of Ramza and Delita, now that she had the chance.</p>
<p>“I’m glad to hear that,” Jenomis told her with a smile, and offered her an arm. “Come on, then, let’s get you to your seats. I saved a pair of the best ones when you told me you’d be here.” He led them to their seats, which <em>were</em> quite good, and gave Brona’s hand a squeeze and nodded at Hades. “Enjoy the show, both of you,” he said with a bow, and vanished back into the halls, heading towards the stage to get the show started. Brona leaned into Hades as the lights dimmed, and took his hand in hers. More than she was looking forward to seeing the show, really, it...it was that she was seeing it with him that made her happiest. Sharing something with the man she loved, something <em>he</em> loved...that meant the world to her.</p>
<p>And it was quite the show--- Jenomis acted as narrator, and the siblings played the main roles, and what a story it was! She had known vaguely of Ramza, of Delita, of Alma and Orran, of Count Orlandeau and Mustadio and Agrias, but the rest...the rest she hadn’t known. To see the story of their adventure, the Lucavi and Ultima --- she had to wonder if the Ascians had been involved, but decided not to ask --- a story of politics, betrayal and secrets and intrigue and loyalty…it was incredible and so fascinating--- and now she knew why Bran had sworn loudly at that Argath fellow in Lesalia! She felt rather like swearing at him, too, really.</p>
<p>The lights came up for the intermission, the story holding its breath at the outbreak of the War of the Lions, the death of Marquis Elmdore and the capture of Queen Louveria, Delita rising in the ranks of the army fighting for Princess Ovelia while Ramza uncovered the plot of the Lucavi, dueling the corrupt Cardinal and the Lucavi Cuchulainn (she wondered what came first, then, him or the Voidsent, or if perhaps they were one and the same), and Brona turned to Hades, who was beaming widely, eyes alight. “Having fun?” She asked quietly, and he turned to her in turn, leaning over for a kiss as he laughed breathlessly.</p>
<p>“Oh, stars, <em>yes</em>,” he told her, audibly thrilled. “They’ve grown into such good actors, those two, and the production is incredible as always, and the <em>story</em>--- truly, they bring it to life. Ah, to get to see them perform again...” He leaned into her, tangling his hand in hers again as he’d let go sometime during the first act to clutch at the railing of their seats. “They’re wonderful in all they do, you know, not just this one--- though this is their crown jewel, so to speak,” he told her, grinning with that childlike glee one gets when they get to speak of something they love. “I’ve seen almost all of the plays they put on, really, they’re all wonderful. I don’t know that they’ll ever perform <em>Maria and Draco</em> again, since poor Tia’s passing, but--- ah, they do a lovely performance of <em>Tale of the Paladin</em>, did you know? I’m sure Bran would enjoy that one. Their run of <em>Tale of the Esper </em>was a little ambitious, given the scale, but I’m sure he felt obligated given that one’s all but Ilsabard’s national faerie tale...they did do a good job of it all the same!” He gestured excitedly, and Brona smiled, watching him speak--- he was so happy, so <em>alive</em>, it was...she hadn’t seen him like this before, not truly. Not so genuinely joyful, his grief and pain put aside in the moment, letting himself simply be, simply experience the point in time in which he lived. It was beautiful, she thought, and let him continue. </p>
<p>“Oh, and then there was <em>Onion Knight’s Tale</em>, which was actually based on Allag stories, did you know?” He went on, still beaming. “I loved seeing that one, it was delightful! The way they set the stage for some of it…quite clever! And oh, <em>I Want To Be Your Canary</em> does have quite the silly name, true, but it’s a lovely story. It was very popular for a while, on and off...<em>The Wild Rose Rebellion</em> is fun, too, actually, and--- oh, hello!” He broke off, blinking, and Brona turned to follow his gaze to find a familiar face; that one actress, the one who had sent them off on all those silly quests for her and her husband. She smiled at them where she stood in the doorway, a bottle of wine balanced on her hip and two glasses in her other hand.</p>
<p>“Hello, loves!” She said brightly. “I thought I might surprise you. You did my man and I a few good turns, after all, and if you’re here with <em>yours</em>...it’s only fair, I suppose.” She placed her gifts on the armrest between them gently. “Enjoy it, and enjoy the rest of the show!” </p>
<p>Hades laughed after she vanished with a flounce. “You do know everyone, you lot,” he teased, and moved to pick up the bottle, only to blink. “And you know people with <em>impeccable</em> taste in wines, good gods. Dalmascan Valens? This is <em>ridiculously</em> expensive. Worth every gil, of course, but...dare I even ask, my dear?”</p>
<p>“Please don’t,” Brona said dryly. “But...I take that to mean you’ve had it?”</p>
<p>He chuckled as he uncorked the bottle, pouring them glasses as the lights began to dim once again for act two. “Oh, yes, my dear. I <em>was</em> emperor. And I <em>have</em> developed quite the taste for finer things in all my years, much to my amusement. This is quite the gift, I must say. Let’s enjoy it as she asked, mm?” He handed her a glass and took a sip of his own, settling in with a smile on his face as the show began once again. Brona took a sip of her own glass --- she was no connoisseur, but it <em>did</em> taste quite good, and she supposed then it might have been worth all that trouble --- and settled in herself, leaning forward slightly as Ramza and the others came onstage to continue the story.</p>
<p>The ending of the tale is as incredible as the first act; more intrigue, more battles, more Lucavi, not to mention more names she recognizes -- first was Belias and Cuchulainn, and now comes Hashmal, which is fascinating, and then of course Ultima herself. The story ends and she recalls this part from the Echo, and ends again with a speech from Alma and Delita and Orran, and the audience --- her included --- give a standing ovation. It was as everyone is filtering out that she looked at Hades, and he beamed at her, cheeks slightly flushed...ah, she thought, bemused. She’d only had one glass, too engrossed to pour herself another, but it seemed in his distracted excitement he’d drained the rest of the bottle. And it was rather strong, she supposed, given that it had gotten an <em>ancient</em> drunk. Though, perhaps he had simply...let it? It was hard to say.</p>
<p>“Well?” She asked, and he laughed, kissing her clumsily. “I take it you did, in fact, enjoy yourself?”</p>
<p>He laughed again, nuzzling against her cheek. “But of course,” he said, his voice only slurring slightly. “T’was wonderful! The acting, the effects, the <em>Lucavi</em>, oh, how wonderful was Ultima! Such a clever display! And ah, that finale--- truly, truly lovely. I should...I should tell them so, hmm?” He stood and wobbled a bit, taking her arm with a smile. “Let’s...let’s go down to the stage, my dear, I’m sure--- I’m sure they’ll be there.”</p>
<p>That said, she laughed and stumbled along as he headed off to the stage, tugging her with him in his wobbly gait, laughing every time he almost missed a step and leaning against her heavily. She hadn't imagined he could <em>get</em> drunk! But here he is, and even happier now than before, truly having this night to be happy and free of his troubles, and even if he would regret it in the morning, she was glad he had this now. He deserved to have more times like these.</p>
<p>The stage and seats were empty when they got down there, and she laughed at Hades’ pout. “Well, then they’re probably backstage,” she suggested. “We should head that wa-- oh!” She gasped in surprise as he tugged her closer to the stage, letting go only to haphazardly clamber onstage himself, laughing and turning to face her with a smile on his face, eyes alight. “Hades, what are you doing?” She asked, putting her hands on her hips with a smile, unable to hide her amusement and pleasure.</p>
<p>“I’m--- I’m <em>performing</em>,” he told her, giggling, a sweet and rather undignified snort escaping him. “For--- for you. S’from a good play. I mentioned it? The one with the silly name.” <em>I Want To Be Your Canary</em>, wasn’t it, she thought--- oh dear. “S’romantic, you know. I don’t normally like romances, I like faerie tales, but this one was--- was sweet. Bit overdone, but sweet. Marcus and Cornelia and all that, really lovely…ah, how did it go---?” </p>
<p>He laughed again, pressing a hand to his chest as he dramatically recited a bit of the script, making Brona dissolve into helpless giggles. “<em>‘Cast away thy trappings of royalty, and I shall swaddle thee in a gown of pure love! Never again will I part from thee! Pray, my love, make me thy canary to keep forever in the cage of thy bosom! Let us embark on the first ship tomorrow, before dawn can tell of our elopement!’</em>” </p>
<p>“Hades!” She managed between peals of laughter, cheeks flaring bright red. “Oh--- oh gods, get down, you’re so drunk!” He laughed again, shaking his head, stumbling teasingly away from her upon the stage. </p>
<p>“No!” He said cheerily. “M’completely sober! Absolutely! An’-- ah, the climax was wonderful, it was,” he continued, stopping again to recite more. “<em>‘Could she have betrayed me? Nay, ne'er would my love speak false. I must have faith! She shall appear if I only believe! As the sun lends me no ear, I pray instead to the twin moons! I beseech thee, wondrous moonlight, grant me my only wish! Bring my beloved to me!’</em>” He danced back closer to her, then, catching her hand in his and tugging her up with him on stage, spinning her dizzily and kissing her. “And here you are, my beloved,” he said, leaning his forehead against hers. “My prayers were answered.”</p>
<p>“So they were,” she agreed, still blushing, but smiling as well. “Now are you done? I do think you need to get some rest, you absolutely ridiculous man.”</p>
<p>“Hush,” he said. “M’not done yet.” He spun her again, looking thoughtful, eyes still sparkling. “Ah, I know! Th’--- th’ other romance I liked. <em>Maria and Draco</em>. It--- there was singing,” he said impishly. “It was a...singing show. Not as silly, but--- but good. Very dramatic.”</p>
<p>Brona groaned, though she couldn’t lose her smile, and she tugged at him insistently. “Oh, no, Hades, don’t sing,” she told him, eyes alight and cheeks refusing to cool. “Don’t. Come along, quit it, you silly, wonderful man.”</p>
<p>“Never!” He declared. “You--- this’s what you get, my love. S’what you get.” He laughed, kissing her once again. “Silly an’ wonderful an’ ridiculous an’ <em>yours</em>. ‘Cause you saved me. You did, Brona, you saved me. And now m’yours, and this is what you get.”</p>
<p>She flushed deeper, and he took the chance to break away from her, skipping a few steps away with mischief in his eyes. “Ah, now I remember!” He said teasingly, and began to sing -- not badly, he had quite a lovely voice, but somewhat offkey given his inebriation. “‘<em>Oh Maria! My beloved, do you hear, my words whispered in your ear, as if I were by your side? I---’</em> oop!” He yelped, then, cutting himself off as he finally lost his balance, sitting hard on the stage and giggling. “Alright, so-- so maybe my <em>legs</em> are drunk. But not the rest of me!”</p>
<p>“Hades, <em>please</em>,” Brona said with a laugh, moving to help him up and get him down off the stage to sit down. He leaned on her, giggling, but let her do so, sitting down on one of the benches in the front row and sliding down to slump against the one behind him, laughter turning into a jaw-cracking yawn. “You nap, then,” she told him, amused. “I’ll get you home.”</p>
<p>That said, she turned to head back down the hall towards the backstage, but stopped when she saw Jenomis approaching. “So I see you two had a good time,” he said, amused, glancing at where Hades sat, already having dozed off.</p>
<p>“We did!” She said, shaking the blush off her cheeks and smiling. “He loved it, and so did I. It was wonderful, Jenomis, I truly enjoyed it. And I hope I get to see some of your other plays sometime, as well. He really talked them up.”</p>
<p>Jenomis chuckled. “I’m glad to hear that,” he told her. “And did he? That’s flattering, it is, I appreciate how fond he is of our work.” He looked over at him, something in his gaze softening. “You know, there’s something familiar about him,” he mused, and Brona froze for a moment. “But I don’t suppose it matters. He seems like he was happier tonight than he’d been in a long time, and that’s all I need to know.” He smiled at her, and she relaxed. “If my work can bring joy to someone with such sadness in his eyes, then I’ve achieved one of the reasons why I became a playwright. That’s something I’ve always been proud of.”</p>
<p>“It did, I can assure you of that,” she told him with a smile. “And thank you for giving him that joy, Jenomis. He’s...indisposed, but I know he truly loved the performance tonight, as did I. Please, let me know whenever you’ve seats available and if we can we’ll come to see you, no matter the play you put on.”</p>
<p>He smiled at her. “You can be sure I will, Brona. And thank you for coming. The children wore themselves out, but I’ll tell them you said goodbye and how much you both loved it.”</p>
<p>“Thank you, Jenomis,” Brona said, moving to gather Hades up and drape his arm over her shoulder. “And goodnight.”</p>
<p>That said, he headed out, and she teleported them to her house, slipping quietly downstairs as to not wake her housemate and into their room, settling him on the bed as she got undressed, carefully folding her kimono and obi and tucking it away, placing her hairpin on her bedside table as she let her hair down to braid it for sleep and slipped on her nightdress. She paused briefly to unpack her things, putting her tea set on the table as well and adding her herbs and tea to all that was already on her work desk. She paused then, and removed the other package she’d bought, unwrapping it carefully to rest it beside the other contents of her bedside table -- next to the crown of red flowers and the still-glowing aetherial lamp, she tucked her prize; a little lacquered ceramic plate on a stand, painted delicately with a scene the shopkeep had told her was from a Doman faerie tale, the princess and the cowherd, lovers separated by fate but brought together again by the stars themselves. It was a sweet scene, a night sky above a red bridge, a woman on the side closest to the viewer and a man on the far side, the moons bright above them surrounded by countless tiny little stars and a tree with pink flowers looming over it all. </p>
<p>“I think I love faerie tales, too,” she murmured, moving to gently remove Hades’ jacket, cravat, and boots and tuck him into bed, slipping in beside him. “After all...I suppose I’m in one.” </p>
<p>And really, wasn’t she, she thought as she curled against him, his arms instinctively coming to wrap around her waist even in slumber. Something so impossible, so wonderful, could only happen in a faerie tale. The ruler of the Underworld, twisted by grief and darkness and the loss of his beloved, finding new love again in a hero with the face (or soul) of his lost love, only for them to be torn apart by fate and opposing destinies-- and then he returns to his new beloved, defying fate to be together with her again, freed from darkness after so very long. It sounded like something to tell children before bed, didn’t it…? Maybe one day they would write a play about her. About them.</p>
<p>She’d like that, she decided, as she dozed off curled in Hades’ arms. She’d like that very much.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I knew from the start that I had to write this, tbh. It's one of the top things I needed for my ship, and for Hades to get to have.</p>
<p>I did sneak in a couple references to the other ship I have, with some apologies; but it is what it is, he loves who he loves. Again, just some of my headcanons!</p>
<p>I hope I wrote Jenomis and the kids okay, though, oh god. (And not sorry either for the Tanabata refrence.)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. a dinner for two</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Since his unexpected -- and admittedly, still very surreal -- return, Hades found he had plenty of time (too much, perhaps) to think. Thankfully, Brona had taken it upon herself to make sure that much of that time was filled with distractions, or simply her presence to keep him from sinking back beneath the waves of his grief and despair, clearer now in his freedom than ever before, as his rage and disgust at the shards had all burnt away to ashes in his last desperate battle with her and her companions. </p><p>It was easier now than it had ever been to look upon this world and its people, still and always incomplete and so very small, and see...what he had always looked for -- many things, but it always boiled down simply to <em>hope</em> -- and had always wished to find, even though the tempering had ever choked him off from seeing what he now was sure had always been there, but...it was not entirely a blessing, to see with eyes unclouded. Guilt would weigh heavy on his shoulders, but it was a weight he knew he deserved to carry. After all he’d done, all the blood he bore on his hands, for a cause he could not see until now the cost of and for a god that he should never have trusted (could not help <em>but </em>trust), it was only fair that he spend the rest of his eternity with the regret for his actions he could only now truly feel.</p><p>But despite all this, Brona was there. She had saved him, and though perhaps it had been her and her companions both that had done the physical act of freeing him, burning away Zodiark’s touch with their Light, it was she and she alone that had reached out, determined to love him, even when she knew it would have a tragic end. It was she who <em>still</em> loved him, knowing who he was and what he became, what he’d done and what he still <em>would</em> have, had he not been freed. She who had seen Hades beneath Emet-Selch, and really, it was she who he lived for now. He did have some affection for her companions, of course, and he would ever be fond of mortals, more so now than when tempered, but it had still been a fondness that had lasted--- but he lived for Brona’s sake alone. He would have been otherwise content to exile himself to the depths, linger in despair and self-isolation and punishment in his illusion for all that he had done, surround himself with the vestiges of a past he could never regain….but he had not, and would not, for her sake. Because she loved him, she wanted him, and he loved her in turn.</p><p>Perhaps at first he had been drawn to her because of the bright glow of Kore’s soul, shimmering green even after all these years, small and broken but still that of his beloved--- but though at times she could remind him of his lost love, full of compassion and kindness and a love for green and growing things...she was at the same time <em>nothing</em> like her. Kore had been sweet, innocent and pacifistic, never one to raise her voice or scold even for the most harmless things, as soft and gentle as cloud mallow. Brona was...she was a wildfire, bright and passionate and sharp-tongued, beautiful and deadly as a rose with thorns or a poisonous flower, her kind nature tempered with a vicious streak that gave claws to her compassion, and absolutely unafraid to tell him that he was an idiot. He had found himself drawn to that even before he could bring himself to love her, even before he could see her as herself alone; and now that he was free, could look at her and see only Brona, he knew undoubtedly that he was just as smitten, just as devoted, as he ever was to Kore. She was not the same person, no matter what color her soul was, and yet still--- and yet still he loved her, for all she was and all she had done for him.</p><p>He wasn’t at all sure he could ever do enough to give her in return what she had given to him, no matter how she insisted that just his presence and his love was enough --- he certainly didn’t think so, and he knew anyway that Brona <em>needed</em> to be reminded that he did love her, given the doubts he knew plagued her on nights it was her turn to be kept awake by her demons --- but he was damn well going to try. He recalled ages past, in those times long lost, that he had been teased for it, for his ridiculous trait of possessiveness, of how he lavished attention and affection and love on those he had claimed as <em>his</em>, a flaw perhaps but a harmless one then, one he knew had been what twisted and broke him the most over the eons...but he supposed it couldn’t hurt, now. She was his, all he had left now that the other that had claimed his heart was dead and gone and left him alone, and he would never, never let that go, not without a fight. And so...and so it <em>really </em>couldn’t hurt if he took the time to show it as often and as much as he was capable.</p><p>Which had led him to this moment in particular. Perhaps this idea was...ill advised, given that even he had limitations, but--- no. He had come up with it on his own, and in a certain sense of dramatic recklessness (and bullheadedness, perhaps), he was going to see it through.</p><p>One thing he had long ago realized about mortals is that they did have...at least some things in common with his people, little places in which they overlapped-- never by far enough to have satisfied him in the past, inconsequential ways that had never been important, but now it feels like every one of those things was just a spark of familiarity that he can work with, learn to work around. One of those things was that both his people and mortals appreciated more than anything else the <em>effort</em> put into romantic or otherwise grand gestures. More than the contents, it was the work put in that drew the most fondness and praise from those whom the gesture was for. That was the same, though...what constituted as effort was where things differed wildly.</p><p>For those of the past, his people, who could Create anything with but a snap of one’s fingers, the marks of effort were not tangible--- they were in the intricacy, the detail, the fine work that was a mark of deep concentration, for the more elaborate the concept the more focus was required, the more important it was that the creator be skilled and work hard at manipulating their aether. And that aether itself was another mark of it, the complexity in which it was woven into the objects created. Mortals, though...they had no ability to see those weaving strands of aether, not the same way, and even elaborate things were not necessarily a mark of their own effort when they could be bought and sold and faked and so many other things that made it entirely <em>frustrating</em>. For mortals, it was the physical proof of work that made it apparent; even childish and clumsy attempts at something were cherished if it was done with a genuine passion, a genuine desire to create with one’s own hands something for another person. For a long time he hadn’t understood it, been perhaps offended by amateurish creations, haphazard and clumsy for their obvious lack of skill and focus--- but creation was an altogether different beast for mortals, who could not do so with near as much ease, and over the years he had learned that. Had never appreciated it until now, of course, but learned it all the same.</p><p>Not that he could...<em>entirely</em> misunderstand it. It had been a hobby of his, once, as many of his people had hobbies --- something solely for themselves, shared only with those closest and kept behind closed doors, something not for showing off but simply for their own amusement and pleasure --- to...make models. To put his encyclopedic knowledge of the city, of their world, of the people and beings within it, his Sight and his unconditional love of his home and the souls that cycled through it, to use. They had been intricate things, tableaus of the city, the lands around it, little figurines of people and creatures dotting them, sat on shelves to display frozen moments in time, memories or even simply amusing or clever ideas of scenes to create. And though he had always Created the materials, he had tended towards going about the actual modeling on his own, the long way. There had been something satisfying about seeing it take shape beneath his fingers, painting the models and placing them just so, having it take time rather than simply doing it with a thought. So in a way he understood where mortals’ efforts had come from -- the reason he had come to genuinely appreciate their attempts at the arts -- but until now it had made little sense; until now it had felt like an amusing curiosity, not something to be genuinely fond of. (There were, he found, many things of that nature to consider.)</p><p>And so that thought, really, had been what had led him to this idea: he had wanted to make something for Brona, put the effort in with his own two hands rather than simply Creating it for her and<em> make</em> something, something she would appreciate, and something she would be able to see the time and effort he had gone through, something done in the mortal fashion. He had picked up many skills over the eons, whether through sheer boredom or necessity for his vessels’ lives, some of which he supposed were entirely unnecessary, but...they would come in handy, right? At least, he could say he could do them. If he was to live among mortals, first in disguise during his myriad lives lived as one in service to the Rejoinings and now in truth, he couldn’t rely <em>entirely </em>on his skill at Creation. (And besides, his soul was still too wounded from that last battle to push too far, which is why he hadn’t simply snapped the Scions home already.)</p><p>In this case, what he had chosen to do, while somewhat ambitious given the utter lack of skill in the field he had once held in ages past, was to cook her dinner. </p><p>He had taken it upon himself to do it over a week or so whilst she was away on the First with the other Warriors --- helping the Scions with something or other over there, he wasn’t certain though he knew she’d tell him when she returned, as given the Emissary’s current presence there it was not safe for him to accompany her --- with the plan of having it ready the night she arrived back home. It would be a nice surprise, after all. Perhaps unwise and a little reckless, as he hadn’t done any cooking in…oh, stars, a few centuries --- Solus hadn’t really been a cook at all beyond simple things for himself in his youth, and he had slept for a good long time in between his last mortal life and the Garlean’s --- but...he had decided to try, and so he would! </p><p>Of course, that did mean going <em>shopping</em>, and though luckily the residential district in which her shared house sat was quite close to Ul’dah, he had never actually been there without her, and never been there at all in its history, given he had been sleeping and then off in Ilsabard--- the last time he had been in Eorzea was the War of the Magi, really, and <em>none</em> of these places existed then. But one mortal city was similar to them all, and he’d picked up the general feel of the desert metropolis when she’d taken him on a brief tour not long ago. And really, he could Create as much gil as he needed, and if there was something else he was quite good at, it was <em>debating</em>. And really, wasn’t haggling just debating over prices? Nothing he couldn’t handle, and nothing he hadn’t handled countless times before. Mortals did have a nasty habit of being rather cutthroat when it came to money.</p><p>The first step had been to borrow one of the cookbooks belonging to Brona’s housemate -- another of the Warriors, a rather eccentric young lady who somehow didn’t seem to mind his presence about the place -- and poke through it for ideas. Admittedly, he’d had to talk himself out of the more...<em>complicated</em> ideas, if just because though he was being stubborn and ambitious about this, he was going to <em>attempt</em> to not be stupid about it. And trying overly fancy things, no matter how delicious they sounded, was probably a stupid idea. Probably. (Maybe he’d beg the cook among the Warriors to make him that salmon pasta sometime, it <em>did</em> sound very good…)</p><p>Sufficiently armed with a grocery list and no small level of amusement -- albeit amusement colored with bittersweet nostalgia, thinking about how his dear lost friend would have been torn between laughter and horror at the idea of him attempting this -- it was off to brave Ul’dah’s marketplace. Not that he disliked it; no, he had always been rather fond of markets, as much as he could be. The noise and color, the variety of sounds and smells and the wares on display, it was something uniquely mortal. Amaurotines had no need for markets when one could simply Create what they needed and gave freely to anyone who asked --- so the concept was one that only mortals, small and incomplete, could have come up with. So many people selling things they had crafted themselves, food or clothing, potions or jewelry, it was something else he had enjoyed in a bemused, curious sort of detachment--- something that now he could stand and marvel at for bells, taking in all of the myriad ways mortals strove to make their way through their fleeting lives, lives that were to them just as important as his peoples’ had been, and still were. </p><p>Sighing softly, he stood for a moment longer to wonder at how to these mortals, he was simply a face in the crowd, a tall Hyur with white hair and vivid, pale green eyes, someone to brush past and ignore as they went about their lives--- none knew who he was, what he was, anything he’d done, and in this crowd it did not matter. He was one among many, one life among thousands, seen and forgotten as they went on about their day. None of them would ever know the eons he’d lived, the sins he’d committed, the people he’d loved and lost. It was...almost like being adrift in the Underworld, their Lifestream, an anonymous soul swept along the current among countless others. For a moment he risked refocusing onto his Sight, taking in the tiny shimmers of all the souls in the market, the river of souls flowing above and around them--- he had long loathed what it had become, what they had become, cursed the sight that had once been a blessing, that now forced him to see diminished, incomplete, malformed things, souls that were guttering candles where once were suns, a Lifestream that was too small and too fast, a pale shadow, a rushing and waned river where once was an ocean.</p><p>But to see it now, seeing it with eyes unclouded by tempering, truly trying to look--- he could see its beauty. Quick-burning and so very small mortal souls might be, but there were so many, and somehow they still shone, small and brief but no less bright for it. And thought the Lifestream rushed so fast, contained so, <em>so</em> many tiny little lives that lived and died in blinks of an eye to him, it was...it was no ocean, gentle and slow-moving and cradling the suns of those souls passed on in its embrace, but it was instead as if he looked up upon the night sky itself, a rainbow of glimmering stars. None of them alone could compare to the sheer vastness, the sheer brilliance, of the soul of an ancient, one of his people, but together like this, a thousand thousand mortals could almost come close. And wasn’t that always where true beauty was, souls working in tandem? It was a shame so many of them had died before he had been able to see it…</p><p>Moment over, he shook his head to clear it and refocus on the physical realm, and moved off, digging his list out of his pocket to check it again; technically he didn’t <em>need</em> a list, given his impeccable memory, but it felt...mundane to have one, and it was fun to play at being a mortal, in need of mundane things. Fun, and for once <em>genuinely</em> so. </p><p>The list was in his spidery, scrawling handwriting, not so fine and neat as certain people he once knew but legible, if a bit messy, and went thus: <em>fish (salmon?), butter (lots), flour, lemons (2?), parsley (some), cheese (also lots), onions (lots), soup stock, wine (white, cheap), bread, popotoes (4), milk+cream, garlic (1), eggs, honey, sugar, nuts (any kind). </em>It probably wasn’t the best list, really, and rather inaccurate with amounts in some cases, but it would do. If he got too much, then the girls would have something to use later, right? And if he got too little, then <em>that </em>he would handle himself. Fixing mistakes was a good enough use for Creations in this case.</p><p>If asked, he would never admit to it, but he’s sure the shopping took far longer than it should have, given his tendency to wander off and get sidetracked by some booth of shiny things or other, curious at the craftsmanship or simply entranced by how interesting whatever it was looked. It was all so fascinating, though! He had ended up leaving the markets with his purchases for the planned meal, of course, but along the way he had accidentally managed to also purchase a pretty hair decoration for Brona, made of silken purple flowers, and a hand-bound book of faerie tales for himself...well, that and a small set of paints. He hadn’t indulged his hobby in so, so very long...and there were so many new memories and new places, now.</p><p>That done and everything properly stored, he had one more trip to make before he could actually get to work--- it was a bit of a long shot, this, but it was worth trying, and Brona had already told him of the one group of people that could possibly be able to help him. It was odd, relying on mortals to do something for him, but...he kind of liked the idea, now. So off he went to the Sea of Clouds, relying on Brona’s tales to lead him to whereabouts to look-- though, in the end, it was they who found him first. Then again, a lone man poking about suspiciously in a rather remote area of the middle of nowhere wasn’t exactly inconspicuous. At least he hadn’t been caught <em>napping</em>. Regardless, he had managed to find the Redbills either way.</p><p>And--- then they managed to surprise him again. No sooner had he mentioned his name then the little Lalafell had lit up, delighted. “<em>Oooh</em>, you’re Brona’s boyfriend!” She said, grinning ear to ear, and all he could do was blink at her and try not to go red. “She’s told us all about you, Hades, and you <em>do </em>fit the description...my, you’re even more handsome than she led us to believe!” </p><p>“....what?” He managed after a moment, now certain he was flushed red with startled embarrassment. “She...I hadn’t realized she had spoken of me to anyone...” She’d said she kept in touch with them, given their continued exploration of the Mhachi ruins, but--- to <em>gossip?</em> He hadn’t...he hadn’t expected her to speak of him at all to strangers, let alone in...apparently glowing terms.</p><p>“Oh, <em>absolutely</em>,” the woman told him brightly. “She about <em>gushes</em> when you come up. So, Hades, what brings you all the way out here?”</p><p>“I--” He tried, still flustered, and then shook his head to clear it. “I was hoping you could help me,” he told the woman. “I’m...preparing a gift for Brona, you see, and given that I've heard you’ve made a habit of...<em>treasure hunting</em> in Mhach, if anyone would help me find what I’m looking for, it’s you lot.”</p><p>The woman only beamed wider. “Oh, now that’s <em>romantic</em>,” she said, delighted. “Come on with me to the Parrock, now. I’m just the mechanic--- if anyone could help you dig something up from our spoils, it’s Stacia.” That said, off they went to rather quite ingenious little floating headquarters -- and honestly, he was entranced; sky pirates, after all, they were in some of the best faerie tales and plays -- where the Lalafellin woman introduced him to a young Hyuran woman, who had about the same reaction to his name, delighted to meet her friend’s beau and immediately willing to aid him in his search.</p><p>“So, what are you looking for?” She asked brightly, leaning against the wall. “I have to admit there’s not much in the way of gold and jewels down there, but plenty of people are willing to buy the kind of artifacts that are, and I can’t say Brona wouldn’t be happy getting her hands on some of it, too…”</p><p>Hades laughed, still red but at least regaining his composure on talk of business. “A rather odd request, actually,” he admitted. “Brona’s told me of a liquor she was once fond of, in Mhach, one that is no longer made for...obvious reasons. She said she’d missed it, and I assume that if anyone had found some bottles still lying around, it would be you.”</p><p>“Ooooh,” Stacia said, eyes sparkling. “Are you planning a romantic date? How sweet!” She grinned. “And to make it sweeter, I think I know just what you’re talking about. Follow me!”</p><p>That said, she straightened, letting him move after her towards where they ostensibly kept their spoils. The warehouse was rather huge, and scattered with...many, many things, much of which he recognized and thankfully all of which was stored properly--- he recalled that there was a little Mhachi familiar about, and he supposed it was him who had made sure nothing was going to explode or eat anyone. Stacia expertly picked her way around a few piles, and stopped in front of a large crate, reaching in to pull out a dusty old bottle, made with dark glass and stoppered with a cork, a label on it proclaiming in Mhachi script to be <em>Gwirodydd; </em>though being an ancient soul, Hades knew it for their word for liquor...or at least one of them. “This is probably it,” she told him with a grin. “Leofard and I cracked open a bottle when we found the case, and honestly neither of us remember much of <em>that</em> night. Strong stuff! Tastes good, though, sweet like mead but stronger and a hells of a lot spicier. Your girl’s got good taste.”</p><p>“Given she chose <em>me</em>, I wonder about that,” Hades said dryly, but accepted the bottle when she handed it over. “Thank you, though. I suppose I owe some sort of recompense, given I<em> am</em> taking away some of your profits...?”</p><p>Stacia snorted. “Nope,” she told him. “Just this once, you get it on the house. A gift from us to Brona, through you, let’s say. If you two ever want any <em>more</em>, you’ll have to pay up, but this one’s yours free of charge.” She grinned. “In fact, we’ll hold onto a crate. Just for you...<em>and</em> your gil, mm?”</p><p>“Never let it be said a sky pirate lets anything get in the way of their spoils,” Hades said with a bemused smile. “But again, thank you. I’m sure she’ll enjoy it, and I’ll pass along your regards as well.” That said, he let the Lalafellin girl drop him off back at the Sea of Clouds, and took himself along just far enough to be unseen when he teleported back to the house. He...had to admit, he hadn’t been expecting that. Both the enthusiastic and fond welcome from Brona’s friends and...and the kindness in giving him the bottle of spirits for free. Of course, that they’d have to pay for any future bottles was expected, but that she had been willing to simply gift him this one, only because he was Brona’s…? Ah, mortals. They would continue to surprise him, wouldn’t they?</p><p>And so, as much as he liked to sleep and sleep in, the morning Brona was due back Hades roused himself early (early as he could, at any rate), and slipped upstairs into the kitchen to get started. It was a rather small space, and far less advanced than Garlemald’s, but it wasn’t all that difficult ot figure out-- more so it was hard to juggle everything as he got started, and he ended up at least casting a small spell to let the cookbook hover obediently beside him as he fussed with everything. One less thing sitting about to knock into, at least! </p><p>Even so, trying to cook about four things at once was...more of a hassle than he’d expected, and he knew at some point he’d smacked his elbows around, nearly knocked things over scrambling for ingredients he’d left on another counter, almost tripped in his frantic back and forth scurrying to Brona’s outdoor herb garden, and nearly sliced his fingers open...far more than once. But at least it was all going relatively apace and nothing had caught fire. The popotoes and the pie were both either baking or cooling, and the pot of soup frankly smelled like he could eat it now (and he was very much resisting the urge to do that), and all that was left to do was the salmon. It was more than a little chaotic, and he was fairly sure that whatever of the white wine he hadn’t used for the dishes he’d drunk himself--- it was rather cheap bottle of it, to be sure, but it was still <em>wine</em>. Even so, despite all the trouble and exhausting work, he...he was having <em>fun</em>. To really get to enjoy for the first time the mortal hassle of cooking he’d never cared about before beyond necessity, it was...he couldn’t say he’d make it a regular occurrence, but it was certainly far more entertaining and enjoyable than it had ever been before. Even the silliest, most ridiculous things of chopping and cutting, putting things in pans and heating them, making a pie crust or mixing things in a bowl, it was all...fun, he supposed, to watch as it came into being under his hands, smelling absolutely delicious. If it were up to him, he could have simply snapped it into existence, willed it from his aether into being, absent one moment and existing in full, fully complete, on the table. But...as simple as that would be for him, as intrinsic as the act of Creation was to him now and always, there was something to be said for how fun the mortal way of doing things was, how satisfying. </p><p>Even if he very nearly burnt himself getting the popotoes out of the oven, and even if he nearly dropped one of the knives on his foot; even if cutting all the bloody onions made his eyes sting and water for half a bell and even if he’d very nearly spilled the entire container of salt into the saucepan...it was <em>fun</em>. </p><p>He knew if they were here, his brother and his dearest lost friend, they’d be laughing at him, shaking their heads in bemused horror, teasing him incessantly about all his mistakes and making sure that he knew how ridiculous he was being. He could almost hear them, really, their voices clear as day: <em>Look at you, Hades, </em>Hythlodaeus would crow. <em>Covered in flour and honey and stars know what else and drinking your cooking wine! Truly, you are the finest chef on the Source. She will be delighted...and probably make you bathe. </em>And Hephaestus would laugh, rolling his eyes and wrinkling his nose. <em>Bath first,</em> he’d say. <em>You reek of onions and garlic, no one would want you anywhere near them like that, let alone giving them your ridiculous brand of affection</em>. Then he’d sigh and smile fondly. <em>Though</em> <em>I suppose it’s a miracle you set nothing on fire, I’ll give you that. Good job, Hades</em>.</p><p>Ah, he missed them. He hummed tunelessly to himself a moment, lifting the near-empty wine bottle in a toast to those lost, and downing the rest--- true, they were not here, and could never be, and he would ever miss them as if pieces of himself had been torn out with their deaths, but...he remembered them. He would always remember them, and he supposed that had to remain enough. To have his beloved Brona, to have her with him now, and to remember his brat of a brother, twin in both face and skill with the Sight, to remember his dearest friend, fallen so far alongside him and lost while he slept...that would have to be enough.</p><p>That thought in mind and dinner all but ready, he slipped off to do what the ghosts in in head had suggested and bathe, cleaning himself up before hurrying to get everything on the table even as he was able to sense her soul arrive at the aetheryte at the front of the house.</p><p>“Hades, I’m home,” Brona called as she entered, resting her staff and pack by the door. “Lulu offered to stay with Cassie tonight, bless her, so we’ve the house to ourselves, and--- oh!” She gasped, trailing to a halt as the dining table came into view, Hades leaning on one of the chairs and trying not to look too triumphant or overly proud of himself. It was a nice setup, at the very least; that part he couldn’t mess up if he tried. The salmon, fried and covered in the sauce, sat on plates along with helpings of popotoes au gratin beside a bowl of baked onion soup and a basket of the extra bread, with the bottle of Mhachi liquor on the table beside two glasses-- the nut pie was still in the kitchen keeping warm, but everything was done, and he’d also managed to make the table look even nicer with candles and a flower vase borrowed from elsewhere in the house. “Hades, did you---? Did you do all this?”</p><p>He grinned at her, finally unable to keep from looking almost like a youth presenting their finished project to the class, and came around to hug her, kissing her gently. “I did!” He said, proudly. “All of it, and by hand, too. I promise I didn’t set the kitchen on fire or leave Lulura a mess, you can reassure her of that.”</p><p>“By hand!” Brona said, laughing and giving him a kiss in return. “You? Really? He who so casually snaps up entire sets of clothing on a whim?” His grin widened further, and she beamed at him, going pink. “For me?” She asked, and he kissed her again, and her blush only deepened. “Oh, Hades, you didn’t---” She found herself at a loss for words, it seemed, and hugged him tightly, kissing him for longer this time before moving to the table. “It looks delicious,” she tells him. “For someone who seems to think he’s an amateur at doing things our way, you really did a good job--- wait, is that---?” She gasped again and picked up the bottle, eyes going wide. “Oh, oh it is! Hades, where did you <em>find</em> this?!”</p><p>He smiled at her, coming up from behind her to take it from her hands to open it with a deft twist of his wrist, tugging her chair out for her with a foot as he filled their glasses. “A friend of yours,” he said simply. “Which, by the way, Stacia sends her regards, and would like you to know she’s keeping a crate for us, though any further bottles we’d like will need be paid for, of course.”</p><p>“...oh, Hades, you went and spoke to the Redbills!” Brona said, sounding somehow delighted. “And did you go shopping for everything, too?”</p><p>“...yes?” He replied, puzzled, as he moved to sit beside her, raising an eyebrow at her visible giddiness. “What about it has you so pleased?”</p><p>She nudged him gently as she moved to pick up her silverware. “You willingly went out on your own and interacted with mortals,” she told him. “Complete strangers, at that. Ones you didn’t <em>have </em>to, when you could have just snapped up all the ingredients yourself, or hunted down a bottle on your own. You can do <em>so much</em>, Hades, even if you decided to actually cook the long way, and you <em>didn’t</em>. You did <em>everything </em>like one of us, even when you know I know and you had no need to hide.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I’m very proud of you,” she told him. “And that you did all this for<em> me</em>…”</p><p>“Of course I did,” he told her, trying not to go pink himself, which was difficult with the half bottle of cheap wine already in him. “I’ve told you, Brona. I could never in all the years to come give you a fraction of what you’ve given me. This is...this is the least I can do, these small things that make you so happy. Seeing you smile...it reminds me I can still do that for <em>one </em>person, at least.” He put his glass down before he took a sip and ran fingers through her hair, briefly. “And besides,” he added. “It was fun. I don’t know that I’ll be making a <em>hobby </em>out of cooking, but I did enjoy it all.”</p><p>Brona leaned into his touch with a hum. “I’m glad you had fun,” she said, and then picked up her own glass, raising it for a toast. “Now, let’s enjoy your hard work and get very, very drunk, mm? We have the place to ourselves tonight, after all--- we can’t let <em>that </em>go to waste.”</p><p>“We certainly can’t!” Hades agreed with a wicked smile, picking his glass back up, only for his smile to soften into something gentler. “To the future,” he said, tapping his to hers. “To shared tomorrows,” she added softly, and together they took long sips. </p><p><em>To shared tomorrows</em>...that, he thought, was a sentiment he could truly appreciate.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This one was inspired by how much I enjoy watching cooking shows, and how I definitely wanted to write more from Hades' POV. He's sweet, and he deserves to have fun and be silly amid everything else.</p><p>Apologies for some headcanons about Hythlodaeus, and my dear Hephaestus (who you should recognize by now, if you've read some of my other works, but if not, it really doesn't matter; he is who he is regardless).</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>